What Daylight Savings Time Does for Your Flock

In 1874, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter as a joke to suggest that adjusting waking hours during the summer would conserve candles  It wouldn’t actually become common practice until the mid-late 1900’s  Although most countries in the world observe Daylight Savings Time, it’s often thought of as a nuisance to schedules and sleep patterns  It takes us humans a couple of weeks to fully adjust to the new hours, which change twice a year  What does Daylight Savings Time do for your flock?

How it affects your chickens

Lights Put More Eggs in the Nest

All of today’s hundreds of chicken breeds originated from wild birds stalking the jungles of Southeast Asia Their distant ancestors were adapted to a hot, humid climate close to the equator where day length doesn’t vary much throughout the year

It’s a wonder these formerly tropical animals can survive cold dark winters, but the plucky birds do just fine when the temperature drops and days shorten as winter grips the north There is a problem Decreasing daylight as fall progresses causes egg production to drop off  It doesn’t cease but slows just as the winter baking season starts

Fortunately, hens can

How Daylight Affects Egg-Laying

Chickens are farm superstars  They produce eggs almost daily  Some chickens have even been known to lay multiple eggs per day  They don’t require much food in order to produce those eggs, either  One thing that many chicken owners quickly realize is that some chickens tend to slow down or stop laying eggs in the winter

 

Why is that?  Keep reading to learn more about why chickens may stop laying in the winter

 

Hens and Daylight

The hen’s body and egg production is a complex cycle that is impacted by the amount of daylight